While I can’t exclude the cost from my mind as the family member who closed out the bar tab at the hotel, I also can’t exclude the interesting and fascinating conversations with a local couple tonight. Or at least primarily the dude, Mario, and his contributions (I think me and his girlfriend, partner, whatever were more aligned at times) to the conversation. Admittedly a lot of it was him giving me shit for driving an electric car, especially with the intention of helping the planet.
But the conversation did eventually turn to religion, or faith in general as id classify it. I didn’t like Mario’s immediate dismissal of my appreciation of the church of satan for calling out political bullshit in the United States, it was still such a fascinating experience and conversation with someone, exploring our different view points, and where they aligned.
Honestly, while I didn’t get a chance to, I almost told this compete stranger what I’ve never told anyone before: my personal beliefs. I’ve shared countless times my simultaneous disdain for organized religion based off of history, but my appreciation and understanding of everyone’s individual beliefs. I’m personally a man of science, but I believe science requires a modicum of faith. Be it religious or otherwise, the faith in a hypothesis is just as powerful as the faith in a higher power.
I’m not sure if I’ll ever share my personal beliefs. I know by definition I’m skirting the line between agnostic and atheist, but I honestly don’t have the knowledge to know it what I currently believe in aligns with an organized religion.
Hell, there are so many tribes and subsets of our species that are unconnected that I don’t think we’d ever know.
I just know that, at the end of the day, if you need the promise of a better afterlife to be a good person, that you’re probably a shitty person in disguise. You should be a good person, a better person, because it is the right thing to do for your fellow man/woman. Regardless of religious, political, geographical, or otherwise.
Maybe I’m naive in believing this. Maybe it comes with my young age. But fuck even a small part of my belief thinks this is the overarching goal of our species
